The secret door
An inconspicuous entrance to sixteenth-century Antwerp.
Johan Bakker — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ludvig14 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fred Romero from Paris, France — CC BY 2.0 · Fred Romero from Paris, France — CC BY 2.0
On the Oude Koornmarkt (south behind the cathedral) look for the small door at number 16 among the cafés — it looks like a private house entrance. Enter and walk the winding passage until you emerge on Pelgrimstraat. Quietly: people live here. Five minutes suffice, and a photo by the iron lamps.
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The Vlaeykensgang is a secret sixteenth-century alley steps from the cathedral: you enter through an inconspicuous little door on the Oude Koornmarkt and find yourself in a winding passage of medieval lanes among white houses, old brick, iron lamps and small courtyards with plants — as if you stepped from the modern city into Antwerp of 1591 in one stride. It housed the poor, the cobblers and the cathedral's bell-ringers, was saved from demolition in the 1960s and carefully restored — today it holds a fine restaurant, an antiques shop and flats. Loveliest when the cathedral's carillon plays (Monday-evening concerts in summer), heard by the alley's residents as their ancestors heard it. Free and open — a few minutes' detour on the route between the Grote Markt and the cathedral, and an unforgettable photograph.
An inconspicuous entrance to sixteenth-century Antwerp.
Old brick, plants and iron lamps.
Oude Koornmarkt 16, 2000 Antwerp